Maple Syrup

Red and his pals collect maple syrup using a fuel pump from a Russian missile.

Cast (in order of appearance):, , , , , , ,

Segments: Red's Campfire Songs, Handyman Corner, The Experts, Red's Poetry, Red's Visits with Possum Lodge Members, Adventures With Bill, Harold's Segments

DVD: Red Green: Stuffed and Mounted, Vol. 1; Red Green – The Infantile Years

DVD Commentary by Steve Smith
STEVE SMITH: We've kinda backed into some kind of merchandising business over the years. It was never on purpose, kinda like the show. And in this episode called "Maple Syrup", we needed a syrup dispenser. And actually, my wife– my real-life– real-life wife made this thing. Once everybody saw it, it was kinda like planting the seed. Now, apparently, there's a Red Green bobble-head doll coming out, but I'm sure the idea came from the syrup dispenser.

Title sequence
''{"The Red Green Show" intro plays. After introducing the characters, the scene cuts to a shot of Harold swinging a baseball bat around, trying to hit a radio, only to hit a lamp, smashing it.}''

RED GREEN: {voiceover} Hi, this is Red Green. In today's show, Harold criticizes adults...

''{Cut to a shot of Bill holding up a flashlight, Red standing nearby. Bill turns on the flashlight and a blast of sparks shoot out of it. Red jumps back, startled.}''

RED GREEN: {voiceover} Bill shows us camping lanterns...

{Cut to a shot of Red cutting a patio table with a chainsaw.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} And I turn a patio table into a windsurfer.

''{Cut to an exterior shot of the Lodge. Several gunshots appear in the screen, then one last gunshot shatters the screen outward.}''

Intro
''{The camera moves through the Lodge from a back room, cluttered with various items, as it goes out into the main room of the Lodge. All the while, Harold introduces the show.}''

HAROLD GREEN: Here's the man who put the "out" in "outhouse". He's the greatest uncle I could ever have, unless, of course, I was adopted, but I wasn't, so no such luck for me. Anyway, here he is, Mr. Red Green!

{Red walks into the Lodge and waves as the audience cheers.}

RED GREEN: Thank you very much and thanks for tuning us in. {to Harold} Kind of an interesting introduction there, Harold.

HAROLD GREEN: Well, you know me: Mr. Showbiz!

''{Harold plays his switcher. A picture of him is seen flying around a shot of the lake. He laughs.}''

RED GREEN: Uh, actually, I was referring to that bit about you being adopted, you know. And if you'd been adopted, Harold, then, of course, you wouldn't be my nephew, and I wouldn't have had to give you this job.

HAROLD GREEN: Yeah, but I don't think anybody would adopt me at this, y'know, advanced development stage that I'm in.

RED GREEN: Well, then, okay, we can do the Moses thing. We could duct-tape you into a kayak and float you down the Nile.

HAROLD GREEN: {laughs} Yeah! Now I know you're just kidding, because there's no boats around this lodge that could float that far.

RED GREEN: {to audience} Well, he does have a point there. With the exception, of course, of Junior Singleton's boat.

HAROLD GREEN: {laughs} Yeah, right! Junior Singleton, yeah! There's so many holes in that boat, no way Junior could fix all those holes. {to audience} No!

RED GREEN: Uh, no, Harold, he's not gonna fix the holes. Junior has upgraded his bilge pump. {to audience} What he did was, he went down to the army surplus store, and he bought – catch this – a used rocket fuel pump off a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile. I'll tell ya, the army surplus store sure has some interesting merchandise since the arms race ended.

HAROLD GREEN: Okay, good! 'Cause I like that! You know, I'm in favor of beating swords into plowshares. Or– Or should I say, y'know, beating rocket fuel equipment into bilge pumps.

RED GREEN: {to Harold} How about beating you into a small, plaid lump? {smiles, bats his eyes; back to audience} Anyway, Junior got the big, huge pump all, uh, mounted inside, uh, inside his boat there, you know, and, uh, suddenly, he got a bit of a surprise when she dropped right through the hull, down to the bottom of the lake, and she was running at the time. This is what we call a setback. And, uh, but by golly, that is some kinda pump! It kept running down the bottom of the lake, and within fifteen minutes, it had pumped the whole Possum Lake totally dry!

HAROLD GREEN: {stunned} Possum Lake w– was pumped dry? Possum Lake is gone now?!

RED GREEN: Oh, no, no, no, what it did was, it temporarily transferred the lake up to the top of the hill. And then the pump ran out of gas and the water came back down again. But– But– But in the meanwhile, it gave us a chance to get out on the bottom of the dry lake, and we got some of our old boats back and a few of our appliances and so on, and... we could fix some of the divots from Moose Thompson doing cannonballs off the boathouse. And most importantly, we got Junior's great big pump back up there. {rubs his hands together} And we decided we're going to do something else with it: we're gonna use it to collect maple syrup.

HAROLD GREEN: {laughs} It's not maple syrup time.

RED GREEN: Harold, with a pump this size, any time is maple syrup time.

HAROLD GREEN: Okay, okay, Uncle Red, you know, I'm not a tree expert or anything, but I don't think you can just get the sap to do whatever you want it to do. {laughs}

RED GREEN: Oh, sure you can, Harold. Get on with the show, will ya?

''{Harold plays his switcher. The show segues to the next segment.}''

RED GREEN: See?

Red's Campfire Song 1
{Red plays guitar and Harold accompanies him by clicking two spoons together.}

RED GREEN: {singing}
 * My butterfly collection
 * Gives me so much pride.
 * My butterfly collection
 * Makes me warm inside.
 * The monarchs, blues and yellows,
 * These are beauties, man, oh, man,
 * Come and see my butterfly collection.
 * They're all wedged in the grill of my van.

Handyman Corner
''{The "Handyman Corner" title appears. The camera pans through another part of the Lodge, where Red stands next to a worktable. Next to the table is a patio table with an umbrella in it.}''

RED GREEN: This week on Handyman Corner, we're gonna show ya an interesting project that you can make {gestures toward patio table} with one of them patio umbrella tables. Now, I know the patio tables are supposed to be used out in your backyard for entertaining your neighbors, but I'd rather do something fun! I'd rather use it for windsurfing. All right, talk is cheap. Let's build. {pulls out umbrella from table} Step one: remove the umbrella. Put it somewhere safe for later. {throws umbrella aside; it makes a clattering noise on landing} There we go. Now what you want to do is, {gestures toward table} you wanna draw out the design of your windsurfer on top of the table, so you can cut it out. {picks up a Black Magic Marker} And for that, you're gonna need some kind of a marker. {picks up a ruler} And, uh, get yourself a ruler, so you keep the edges nice and strai–

''{Red stops suddenly and notices that the ruler somehow twists around another way down the middle. He looks at it really closely.}''

RED GREEN: Boy, y'know, the bent must've been from the moss and the fungi up here. That's the amount of warpage up at the Lodge, so I'll just... {tosses ruler aside; takes marker} I'll just eyeball it.

''{Cut to an overhead shot of the table as Red draws out the design of the windsurfer on it with the marker, carefully as he can, although he does deliberately wavers the lines a bit in area. After drawing the design, he looks at the camera overhead.}''

RED GREEN: I eyeballed there pretty good, didn't I?

{Cut back to the regular perspective.}

RED GREEN: Okay, there we are, and now what we do is we cut along all those lines to cut out our surfboard. Now, you could use a handsaw for that, or if you got a real good eye, you can use an axe. But to me, this is a carving job. For a carving job, {picks up an electric knife off the worktable} I wanna use an electric knife.

''{Red suddenly looks at the knife very closely. He sniffs the blade and removes something from the tip of it on his finger and tastes it.}''

RED GREEN: That's either peanut butter or last year's turkey.

''{Red brings the knife over to the patio table and turns it on. He brings the knife down on the drawn lines, but it doesn't seem to be cutting through. It just sticks on the corner where he placed it. Wipe to a later scene. Red has his sleeves rolled up as he tries to cut the table with the knife, this time while lying on top of it on his hands and knees, but it still doesn't seem to be cutting through. Wipe to a later scene. Red stands up, his sleeves still rolled up. He has discarded the knife and is instead more easily cutting the table up with a long chainsaw. Wipe to a later scene. The now-cut-up pieces of the patio table are on the worktable. Red nods his head, satisfied.}''

RED GREEN: Now you wanna take all these pieces and turn this thing into the shape of a surfboard, {starts to form the pieces together into a surfboard shape} because if those college kids see you surfing on a patio table, you're gonna be the brunt of some insensitive comments, believe me. {puts the pieces together} This unit goes here and this goes here together here and this goes back here... {the table now looks like a surfboard, except for two smaller pieces, which Red takes and places together like a rudder} And then you take two pieces and you put those together to form yourself a rudder. Now, what you do is, you attach everything together using either the epoxy cement or, uh, maybe you like to use bolts and nuts and so on, or... whatever fastening technique you feel most confident with.

''{Wipe to a later scene. Red has attached the patio table pieces together into the surfboard shape, with its rudder, using duct tape. He is placing a last strip of tape on it from a roll.}''

RED GREEN: I prefer the handyman's secret weapon, duct tape. {looks up} Boy, that makes you feel like shootin' a curl, doesn't it? Man, look at all the cobwebs up there. Oh, well.

{Red picks up the surfboard from the worktable, carries it around in front of it, struggling to hold it steady, and places it on the floor.}

RED GREEN: All righty, there we go. {picks up umbrella, which has a wad of duct tape on the tip} I've already hoisted our sail now. I call it– I call it a sail now, 'cause it's unlucky to open an umbrella indoors. And I put a big wad of duct tape on here, so it doesn't go too far in, which is a handy thing to remember. Pop that in there... {sticks umbrella sail through umbrella hole} Looks like we got a pretty good breeze going out there, so, uh, why don't we, uh, try and catch the wind, as Donovan would say? {looks offscreen} Hey, Harold! Wanna open up the big door there?

''{The door opens and wind blows into the workshop. Bits of debris fly around Red.}''

RED GREEN: All right, so remember, if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. {moves the umbrella into a prone position} You'll find me out on the patio!

''{Red, on the surfboard with its sail, is blown forward by the wind. He moves offscreen on the surfboard. Offscreen, he crashes into something.}''

RED GREEN: Wipeout!

The Experts
{Harold stands in the Lodge basement beside a table.}

HAROLD GREEN: And now it's that part of the show where we expose those three little words that men find so difficult to say: "I don't know." {Red and Dougie emerge from behind a door in the back and enter into the room} And here to prove that point on the "Experts" portion of the show is my uncle Red and his best friend in the whole world... {looks at them} Oh! {giggles} Okay. Mr. Dougie Franklin!

''{Red and Dougie wave. They all sit around the table. Harold picks up a letter.}''

HAROLD GREEN: All righty. {reads letter} "Dear Experts, my son has had several throat infections over the years, and our doctor is now saying he should have his tonsils out, which I thought was no longer a recommended procedure. What are your thoughts?"

DOUGIE FRANKLIN: My advice to this person is, get away from this doctor and every doctor as fast you can. Flee!

HAROLD GREEN: So you don't think this person should see a doctor, then?

DOUGIE FRANKLIN: I don't think anybody should see a doctor. You know, the human body is nobody's business, you know? My daddy never saw a doctor a day in his life. Now, he– he smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes – plains – a day, and, uh, y'know... sure, once in a while, he might get a little coughing spell that might last, like, a weekend or something. But apart from that, he was as healthy as you or I.

RED GREEN: So you never been to a doctor, either, Doug?

DOUGIE FRANKLIN: Never been to a doctor, a dentist or a psychiatrist. I'm tellin' ya, the human body was not designed to be repaired from the outside. If the Good Lord had meant this to be, He would've put a hood on us somewhere. {makes car hood motions with his hand} Soon as you gotta slice through skin or start sawin' through bones, you gotta know you're dealin' with something that was designed to be maintenance-free! I tell ya, you get in there and you start tinkerin' with stuff, and you're gonna void your warranty with that master mechanic in the sky, I'll tell you that.

The Winter of Our Discount Tent
''{Red is sitting on a bench in the snow, dressed in a heavy parka. He opens a book and starts reading.}''

RED GREEN: It is winter. Cousin Jerry was lying in the snow, making snow angels. Along came the snowplow. Now Cousin Jerry is making real angels.

Visit With Buzz Sherwood
''{Buzz is working on his plane on a dock out on the lake, with its engine hood open. He is trying to fix something on it with a tool, but it slips out of his hand and falls into the lake.}''

BUZZ SHERWOOD: Aw, man! Not again!

''{Buzz picks up a net from on top of his plane and reaches down into the water with it to fish out the tool. Red walks up to the plane and Buzz.}''

RED GREEN: This thing ready to go, Buzz?

BUZZ SHERWOOD: {putting net back on plane} Oh, yo, Red! Hey! No problemo!

''{Buzz playfully balls his hands into fists and shakes them in front of Red. He then turns to the camera.}''

BUZZ SHERWOOD: Hey, yo, Harold!

''{Buzz gestures the camera to come closer, which it does. Then Buzz butts it with his head, knocking it – and Harold, apparently – down on the dock floor. Buzz laughs.}''

RED GREEN: {looking down at camera} Oh, you're all right, Harold, get up. {camera doesn't pan back up} The plane's– The plane's okay to fly, huh?

BUZZ SHERWOOD: {looking at plane hood} Aw, man, Norwegian wood, this bird has flown.

{Red looks back down, noticing the camera is still on the ground.}

RED GREEN: Harold, there's a dock spider going up your leg there. {camera springs back up}

BUZZ SHERWOOD: See, it needs a new carburetor, y'know? That's, like, a hundred bucks. And I don't wanna spend that kinda bread on a plane like this. {gestures to his left} Hand me the air...

RED GREEN: {voiceover; cutting off what Buzz is saying} What I was thinking was that if I got Buzz here to take me up in his airplane, and I could kinda get an aerial view of the trees around the Lodge and see which ones would be good for our syrup business. I wasn't sure about the plane, though.

''{As Red narrates, Buzz gestures to Red what he wants. Red looks around and then looks down at where Buzz is gesturing. But then Buzz waves dismissively and closes the hood.}''

RED GREEN: You sure we don't need that stuff, Buzz?

{They both head for the entrance into Buzz's plane.}

BUZZ SHERWOOD: Oh, no, no, no, we'll be fine. I'm sure. Well, we'll soon find out. {laughs maniacally}

{Red climbs into the plane, followed by Buzz.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} Buzz doesn't instill a lot of confidence in his passengers, but I still figure, this has gotta be the quickest, easiest way to identify all the maple trees around the Lodge.

{Buzz laughs.}

RED GREEN: Uh, Buzz, I'm– I'm– I'm– I'm just looking for maple trees, that's all.

BUZZ SHERWOOD: Maple?

RED GREEN: Yeah.

BUZZ SHERWOOD: {looking around} I don't know if we got any maple around, y'know?

{Buzz looks down at his plane's legs, which has several branches tangled in it.}

BUZZ SHERWOOD: Let's see, we got, uh... we got the spruce and poplar and pine and aluminum... {sees a piece of bent metal on it; picks it up and looks at it} Aw, man, I hate those TV antennas! {throws metal piece down}

RED GREEN: {starting to climb out of plane} Buzz, I kinda... Y'know, I was gonna kinda look from the air, but I think maybe now a ground survey... I'll get my own...

BUZZ SHERWOOD: Aw, man!

RED GREEN: {overlapping} Sorry.

BUZZ SHERWOOD: {gently blocking Red's way} Keep the faith! You can't walk now, bro! No way! That's bad karma! {climbs into plane} You watch. You watch. {Red moves over to let Buzz in} I mean, if you walked away now, right, any money I'd start up the plane and something that could fly off, it would just sever your spine! {sits down in pilot's seat} Don't worry, don't worry, I got parachutes. {looks around inside plane} Somewhere. {laughs maniacally; points to something on dashboard} All right, see that red knob?

RED GREEN: Yeah?

BUZZ SHERWOOD: When I say "Now", turn it all the way to the right. Cool?

RED GREEN: Alright.

BUZZ SHERWOOD: Alright. {pauses} Now!

''{Red turn the knob all the way over. Suddenly, loud rock music blasts from the plane radio.}''

BUZZ SHERWOOD: {loudly} Yeah!!

{Red is startled by the loud music and covers his ears, but Buzz suddenly starts dancing to the music in his seat.}

RED GREEN: {loudly, over the music} Man!

BUZZ SHERWOOD: {loudly, over the music} Hey, look at this way: at least you won't hear the roar of the engine! {turns on engine; it sputters} Alright, c'mon, bring it on! Bring it on! And... {suddenly, the engine starts} Yeah!

''{Dust suddenly appears, kicked up by the plane and its propeller, and obscures the plane. Buzz yells over the racket as he starts up the plane.}''

Red's Campfire Song 2
{Red plays guitar and Harold accompanies him by clicking two spoons together.}

RED GREEN: {singing}
 * The wind came swirling out across the farm.
 * It blew all the hair off my granny's arm.
 * It blew the livestock down into the well.
 * Blew the clappers off the town hall bell.
 * It was a lesson we learned, and we learned it well:
 * There's one heck of a lot of turbulence when you push a barn over.

Trivia

 * This episode marks the first appearances of Buzz Sherwood and Reg Hunter, as well as the first episode to feature The Experts, which had evidently replaced Male Call.

Real-World References

 * During Handyman Corner, Red's remark about trying to "catch the wind, as Donovan would say" is a reference to Donovan's song, the aptly-titled "Catch the Wind".

Famous People

 * At one point, as the Lodge pushes forward with the collecting of maple syrup, Harold mentions Aunt Jemima.